


The Gift of You

by celestial_cookie



Category: Generator Rex
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Passing Rex, Body Horror, Emotional Baggage, Family, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Gen, La Familia - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Pre-Event, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 06:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16969785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestial_cookie/pseuds/celestial_cookie
Summary: “Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones that would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.”Following his changes from the accident, Violeta and Rafael Salazar decide to send Rex to Abuela's to be a normal kid again.Or: in which a young boy learns the meaning of family, and what it is to be human.





	The Gift of You

**Author's Note:**

> everlasting thanks to my wonderful beta reader alex!! both for helping with the fic and listening to me yell about gr for hours lmao

Rex held his arms out in front of him and frowned, frustrated. Since the accident, he’d changed- in place of blood vessels now pulsed circuitry, and parts of his body were interspersed with metal plating. Thick grooves ran along his skin as if dividing his body into plates.

He didn’t really know how to feel about it. On one hand, it was sort of cool-looking. But on the other... everything had started changing, now that he looked like this. He couldn’t go to school anymore, and he wasn’t allowed to go out unless he was with his family, and covered up. And even though they were on their way to Abuela’s, Rex couldn’t imagine that he’d be allowed to stay; at the very best he’d probably be locked in his room until Mama and Papi came to take him back.

As their ship landed and their family prepared to disembark Rex tentatively reached out to grab his mother’s hand, hesitating slightly at the sight of his metal-covered flesh. However, his mother reached over to take the small, human-yet-not hand into her own, and squeezed it slightly.

“It’s okay, Rexie.” Rex felt a strong hand in his hair and looked up to see his dad smiling at him. “You’ll be fine.” He hid behind his parents as they approached the building, glad Cesar had stayed behind; he didn’t want the whole place knowing why he’d been turned away.

Abuela came out to greet them as always, rushing out from the front gates to envelop both of his parents with hugs and grandma kisses.

“And where’s my favorite grandson?” Abuela peeked behind Papi and gave Rex a kind smile, motioning for him to come over, but he pulled away. A look of concern crossed her face for a fleeting moment, so quick Rex almost thought he imagined it.

“Come this way,” she said, leading him and his parents to one of the side rooms. Before he could enter, his father stopped him.

“Wait out here for just a moment, okay?” Rex nodded numbly, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall as his parents closed the door. It wasn’t like it made a difference. He could hear better since the accident, so hearing the adults’ conversation through the wall was a simple matter of closing his eyes and focusing.

 _“--become scared of everyone and everything,”_ He heard Mama say. _“And with the lab techs running tests on him all the time, we thought it’d be nice for him to get away for awhile, be a normal kid again.”_

 _“I’m just worried about what will happen when the other kids see him,”_ Papi said, and Rex’s feeling of dread came back. The other kids were nowhere to be seen since it was so early in the morning, and that was probably for the best. He didn’t want to scare anyone.

 _“I’ll talk to them,”_ Abuela replied, and there was silence for a moment.

 _“What about Caesar?”_ Rex froze.

 _“Caesar was a little..._ too _enthusiastic,”_ Mama said bitterly, though Rex could barely make out her voice over the blood pounding through his ears. _“You know how he is.”_

The conversation dropped to a whisper, too quiet for Rex to make out over the sound of his own racing heartbeat, but he didn’t need to hear it to know what they were talking about. Mama and Papi hadn’t said anything about it, but he had a feeling part of the reason they’d taken him here was to get him away from Caesar. Especially after last time...

He started from his thoughts at the sound of footsteps coming towards him. The door opened with a loud creak, and glanced up to see his father looking down at him.

“You can come in now, _mijo,”_ he said. Rex followed him into the living room-type area, sitting next to his mom on a large couch across from Abuela.

“Rex, do you think you could take off that jacket for me?” Abuela asked. Rex’s eyes widened in fear and he looked to his parents for guidance. Mama nodded and smiled at him, and put her hand on his shoulder, so he hesitantly slipped off the oversized winter coat that had been his only protection for the past few weeks. Abuela gasped in shock as Rex clenched his hands in his lap nervously, too afraid to meet her eyes and face the rejection he knew he’d find there.

“Rex,” she put her hand on his arm, and he flinched at the contact. “Rex, look at me.” He hesitantly looked up, and the moment their eyes met he felt his heart squeeze tightly in his chest.

Abuela’s eyes held no hint of disgust or fear. There was only love and acceptance, for the first time in too long, and Rex felt his eyes begin to water.

“Come here, _nino_. Come to Abuela,” she said, wrapping him in a comforting, tear-soaked hug.

~~**\-----------------** ~~

Once his parents had helped him unpack he stood at the front gate with Abuela to see them off, anxiously clinging onto their farewell hug.

“You’ll really call? Every day?”

“Every single one,” Mama said, ruffling his hair. “And you can call us whenever you want to, okay? Even just to say ‘I love you’!” She engulfed Rex in a sudden hug, planting kisses all over as he squirmed.

“Mama, you’re embarrassing me!” Rex protested through giggles until she released him.

“Are you sure you can handle maintenance all by yourself?”

“Yeah, yeah! I got it all!” He grinned widely, and his mother shook her head with a fond smile.

“Make sure he spends at least 30 minutes on cleaning every day,” he heard her say to Abuela while Papi came to say goodbye to him. “Especially if he’s out playing in the dirt. If too much grime cakes in those parts, they’ll rust. We learned that the hard way.” Rex shuddered at the memory.

His father crouched down to meet his eyes. “Be good for Abuela, you hear? And I want all of your schoolwork scanned and sent to us daily.”

“Mm-hm.” Rex rolled his eyes. They were leaving him here, where he couldn’t even help with the nanite project, and _that’s_ all Papi had to say?

His dad sighed, and tried a different tactic. “I hear they’ve been having some problems with appliances lately. Do you think you could help out with that?” Rex’s eyes brightened, and he nodded enthusiastically, to which his dad smiled at him.

“That’s my Rexie. Make sure to practice too, _si?_ No shirking just because the other kids think it’s weird.”

Rex nodded dutifully, clenching his fists and commanding his nanites to glow. Grinning, he held out his hands for his dad to see, illuminated like a circuit board of blue light.

“Just like that! You’ve gotta practice using them every day; it wouldn’t do to have you getting _rusty,_ now would it?”

 _“Papi!”_ Rex groaned, as his father burst into laughter.

Once the clamor had died down, he found his father hugging him tightly.

“I love you, Rexie.”

“I love you too, Papi.”

~~**\-----------------** ~~

As Violeta and Rafael Salazar flew away, they watched their son wave enthusiastically from the ground, and he kept waving until he was only a speck in the distance.

“Was it really a good idea to leave him there?” Violeta asked, tapping her fingers on her cheek with a faraway gaze.

“It’s the best one we had,” her husband answered truthfully. “It won’t be for long. But he needs this,” he said quietly. “He needs to feel human again.”


End file.
